Bisphosphonates OK Before Long-Bone Fracture Surgery
A large database study finds bisphosphonates (like Fosamax) are not associated with an increased risk of nonunion a year after surgical treatment of a long-bone fracture
What’s the Claim?
Patients who take bisphosphonates (like alendronate [Fosamax]) are no more likely to have nonunion of a surgically treated long-bone fracture, which also applies to patients treated with selective estrogen receptor modulators or hormone replacement therapy (SERM/HRT). These discoveries come from a large Medicare database study that had enough patients to control for numerous key confounding variables (including age, sex, race, comorbidities, and fracture type), so this is both practical and really, really good news.
